Housing Benefit (Wales)

Siân C. James Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Siân C. James (Swansea East) (Lab)]

Thank you, Sir Roger, for the opportunity to speak in the debate. I will be concentrating on the impact of the changes on my constituency of Swansea East and responding to some of the points that we made in the report. I have carefully considered the evidence in the report and tried to cross-reference it with how the changes are affecting people every day in my constituency.

We are clearly suffering in Swansea East. I do not think that it is too strong to talk about the vicious effect, or the pernicious effect, that the legislation is having in my constituency. We have heard the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) speak very eloquently about the effect that it is having on a rural community, but Swansea East is a typical city or urban constituency, with high demand for social housing in both the public and the private sectors. There are increasing levels of hardship in Swansea East. Most of the people affected are approaching the citizens advice bureau, ourselves and the local authority. Wave after wave of people are appearing on our doorsteps as their problems deepen and they become more concerned, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to help them or to point them in the right direction, because they are at the end of their tether, both figuratively and financially. I have spoken to many individuals who are currently struggling to balance the books—to meet their budgets—but the biggest cause of anxiety by far is the changes to housing benefit and the bedroom tax.

The amount of rent that people in the private sector can claim—their local housing allowance—has been cut back to 30% of the rental value that is available on the market. For many people, only the lowest-value properties are open to them within their already stretched budgets. That places a huge question mark over the suitability and quality of the properties that they can now access or afford. On a daily basis, I hear stories about tenants being housed in properties that are well below any acceptable standards, are too small for their needs and/or are lacking in what people would consider acceptable. Unfortunately, there is one key word that all those properties have in common. The Government would call them affordable; I call them cheap, and cheap usually means not a good enough standard.

That is the reality for far too many people in Wales. It is a sad indictment of the policy and doctrines of the current Government. Their short-sightedness is pushing many people ever closer to homelessness and possible destitution. These are not my words; they are the concerns of well regarded, well respected organisations, such as the Chartered Institute of Housing and Citizens Advice.

[Guto Bebb]

Those concerns were also highlighted in north Wales before the changes to the spare room subsidy were implemented, but the three largest social sector housing providers in Conwy and Denbighshire have seen their arrears either fall or remain static, so were the concerns exaggerated by those individuals and organisations?

[Mrs James]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He is very fortunate, because that is not the pattern that we are seeing in the urban areas, the cities, of south Wales. I will come to some figures later and try to demonstrate the effects that the policy is having on the local authority and the ever-increasing problems that the legislation is creating.

Already, 30,640 homes that are part of the available rented housing stock in Wales are beyond the reach of people on housing benefit. I got these figures from the Chartered Institute of Housing. It estimates that already more than 30,000 homes that are part of the available housing stock in Wales are outside the reach of people who are seeking other homes or cheaper homes or wanting to downsize because of the legislation. In fact, 89% of tenants in Wales will see their benefits cut, and the loss will be on average £8 a week or £416 a year—before we even take the bedroom tax into consideration. Significant amounts of money are disappearing from people’s daily budgets. I know that that is popular in some areas and will make many readers of certain tabloid newspapers feel better, but if they had to live with the reality of it all, they might feel differently about it.

The proposals make a complete travesty of the rented housing sector. We are constantly being told that they are justified and that the Government are attempting to encourage mobility in the social rented sector, strengthen work incentives and make better use of social housing. My response is that they are not doing any of the above, and I seriously doubt whether they ever will. The policies do not encourage mobility in the social rented sector; in fact, I believe that they are creating a dependency on the substandard lower end of the market, regardless of the condition of the homes available for rent at an affordable price. The policies certainly have not strengthened work incentives. Many tenants I come across are suffering from housing-related health problems and are so overwhelmed by their housing issues that seeking work is not an option. They are absolutely ground down into depression by the problems that they face.

It is worth pointing out that the social housing sector simply cannot meet the demand for good-quality, up-to-standard housing when there are insufficient numbers of smaller properties to move tenants into. The Government have wrongly assumed that moving tenants to smaller properties is an easy option. The reality in Wales is that a vast percentage of local authority housing stock consists of traditional three-bedroom properties. That is a direct result of the post-war boom in house building, when properties with three or more bedrooms were needed to accommodate families, which were traditionally larger than they are today. In the 21st century, families have changed, housing needs have changed and there is a clear shortage of smaller one or two-bedroom properties for families to move into. Even when smaller properties are available to rent, they may be unsuitable for the needs of those who seek homes.

I hope that the Minister can provide me with some figures on a matter that the city and county of Swansea has come across. For more than 20 years, its policy has been not to house children, disabled people or elderly people in flats on or above the second floor, for the good reason that there have been tragic accidents in the past, which have been frightening for tenants. It is not deemed proper to house those with mobility problems or children on upper floors, where they have to deal with stairs, balconies or windows at a height. Has the Minister looked at the issue, and can he tell us how many other local authorities are in a similar position? I applaud the city and county of Swansea, because the policy is an eminently sensible one. Obviously, however, it reduces the available housing stock.

A Labour party freedom of information request showed that councils will be unable to help 19 out of 20 families who are affected by the bedroom tax. The figures from the 37 local authorities that responded suggest that 96,000 families will be hit by the bedroom tax, but there are only 3,688 one or two-bedroom council properties available for families who wish to move to avoid the tax. The entire exercise is proving similar to moving the deckchairs around on the Titanic; it is not a good idea when many other more pressing issues need to be addressed. I would be happy to work with the Government on those more pressing issues in our communities. We seem to be pursuing the policy just for the sake of making things look better, and it is simply not working.

Benefit claimants are being treated as though they were part of some sort of social experiment that is being undertaken to appease certain sectors of the community. We already know the outcomes. The policies do not work. They punish and condemn those who are dependent on benefits, and they do not remotely encourage improvement or change for the better.

Before I finish, I want to touch quickly on discretionary housing benefit. We have heard about other local authorities that do not seem to be having a problem and that are quite happy with the situation, but we have a small shortfall in Swansea in the money that is coming in. Currently, the shortfall is some £1,200, which sounds great, but I am concerned that the combined funding from the Department for Work and Pensions and the Welsh Assembly Government is not enough. If the situation continues, we will see an ever-increasing burden on the local authority and its finances. In Swansea, there were 3,198 applications for discretionary housing payment in 2013-14. The local authority awarded 1,871 discretionary housing payments, but it refused 1,327. It is pretty clear that there is a funding gap. In addition, the discretionary housing payment is awarded only for a maximum of 52 weeks. I echo the request of the hon. Member for Ceredigion for further clarification on the future of the discretionary housing allowance.

The housing benefit changes have adversely affected almost all claimants in Wales.

[Geraint Davies]

My understanding of the overall figures—I do not know whether the Minister is interested in this—is that 40% of tenants in Swansea, or 1,949 people, will now have to pay the bedroom tax. I understand that 1,230, or 63%, of those people have gone into arrears since April.

[Mrs James]

I thank my hon. Friend and colleague in the city and county of Swansea for that contribution. We are in a horrendous situation, which has left those in our communities who are least able to defend themselves reeling. I have a horrible feeling that it is only the tip of the iceberg, and that other nasty policies will soon come along to make those people’s lives even more difficult than they are now.

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Order. Several members of the Welsh Affairs Committee and one patient Privy Counsellor are still waiting to speak. I do not propose to impose any time constraint on speeches at this stage, because it strikes me that this report will probably take slightly longer to discuss than the following one. I mention that in case there is a rising tide of alarm. We will endeavour to accommodate everyone.

Personal Independence Payments (Wales)

Siân C. James Excerpts

Wednesday 9th April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Siân C. James (Swansea East) (Lab)]

I will be brief. We have heard much today about the replacement of the disability living allowance with the personal independence payment. I am not going to cite any personal examples from Swansea East, but I will be talking on behalf of a Swansea-wide organisation, the Maggie’s centre, which serves the south and south-west Wales area, providing very important cancer support services for anyone suffering with cancer. We have heard about the various problems and dissatisfaction, and how we all feel about the introduction of PIP and how Capita is proceeding. If I may say so to the Minister, through the Chair, it is not going very well.

Since January, I have written to Capita on 20 occasions. Last Friday was a red letter day, because I received my first answer. We got quite excited in the office that we had received a letter and rang the constituent concerned to inform her, only to find that she had received a telephone call from Capita with information that was diametrically opposed to everything we had been told in the letter. Capita totally contradicted itself. It was a case of the right hand definitely not knowing what the left hand was doing. There are a lot of examples like that, and we have heard about how the lack of a dedicated telephone line adds to people’s problems.

I want to turn to the stress and strain placed on people who are very unwell. It was sad that, when a group of local MPs were invited to Maggie’s centre last Friday to speak to its disability benefits adviser, who has huge experience working across the sector, I saw despair. In the briefing and facts and figures we were given, we saw despair. It was not the frustration that I feel as an MP, which we have heard expressed in this debate and is shared by my office staff; it was despair. It was a person who is working really hard on behalf of people going through the most dreadful experiences of their lives, and basically hitting their head against a rock. It was very sad.

There are many reports of hold-ups with PIP, but I have heard of and experienced cases in which people have been waiting for responses for several months. I have come across one case of someone waiting for more than a year for a decision on payments. Earlier, the Minister mentioned other benefits, but in many cases, the people we are discussing have had to give up really well-paid jobs. They have been managing to keep their heads above water, but suddenly, because decisions are taking so long, they are tumbling into debt and need. I have been told about people going through chemotherapy who are dependent on the local food bank. Can we imagine coping under such circumstances? It is very sad indeed.

The staff at Maggie’s are doing excellent work, as are my staff and those of the other MPs here, under really difficult circumstances. We are becoming more and more frustrated by the system. Capita must surely have internal systems to monitor and evaluate the length of time that assessments are taking—surely there must be internal safeguards. We are coming across staff who, although they are working under difficult circumstances, really do not seem to care that they are not meeting deadlines. They are not rushing things, and that is sad.

People were keen to tell me on Friday that—we all know this as constituency MPs—we are not talking about people trying to swing the lead. This is not a case of people trying to buck the system and get money to which they are not entitled; these are people in genuine need who have enough stresses and strains without additional problems with PIP. Many organisations, such as Hardest Hit, We Are Spartacus and the Disability Benefits Consortium, are expressing serious concerns about the Government’s introduction of PIP. We are even hearing noises of disquiet from health professions about the Government’s having failed to reform the work capability assessment. As I have said, there is little, if any, evidence of performance monitoring in organisations such as Atos and Capita. They are responsible for the assessments; how are we monitoring and assessing how they are achieving things?

I have many stories and examples that I could pass on to the Minister, just like those mentioned by many of my colleagues. I am confident that the fundamental problem with PIP is that it was introduced to save money. How mean. I understand that these are difficult times for the country and that finances are challenging for us all, but we are talking about the least able people. Many of them tell me, “If I could work, Mrs James, I would be there.”

The staff at Maggie’s asked me to ask the Minister one particular question: why does Capita not accept implied consent from a third party? They are ringing up and working on behalf of cancer sufferers, but they are hitting a brick wall. We do not mind as MPs—PIP is the biggest issue in my postbag and I have an increasing responsibility and work commitment to it—but accepting implied consent from a third party would save time for people who are having tremendous difficulties.

I am sure that the Minister and others have heard our dissatisfaction. PIP assessments must be reformed urgently, because people are suffering unnecessarily on top of all their other problems.

Oral Answers to Questions

Siân C. James Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Siân C. James (Swansea East) (Lab)]

3. What sanctions will be applied to jobseeker’s allowance claimants who fail to find work within the period set by his Department.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

There is no time limit on entitlement to income-based jobseeker’s allowance. I remind the hon. Lady that the conditions that pertain to withdrawal of benefit are that individuals must be available for work and seeking work, and they have to sign up to an agreement. If they continually refuse to do any of that, that is when the sanctions come in.

[Mrs James]

I am aware that those sanctions will be applied after a decision by the independent decision maker. What reassurances can the Minister give me about the role of the independent decision maker and the criteria that will be used? I am particularly concerned about the appeal process, because, as one can imagine, mistakes can be made and there should be a right of appeal. I am keen that that right is open to anybody who is sanctioned in that way.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

We will strengthen the role of the independent decision maker to ensure that decisions are made for the right reasons. The hon. Lady can rest assured that we will ensure that is the case. If she has any concerns, she should raise them with us, and if she has any thoughts, we are open to dispute.